Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness is the 6th album of Ephel Duath, the band around Italian mastermind Davide Tiso.

Featuring eight new songs and reaching over 50 minutes of total length, "Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness" includes a unique line-up of: Marco Minnemann (Kreator, Necrophagist, Joe Satriani) behind the drums, Bryan Beller (Dethklok, Joe Satriani) on bass, lead singer Karyn Crisis (Crisis) along with Tiso. The album was produced by Erik Rutan (Cannibal Corpse, Hate Eternal) at Mana Recording Studios in St. Petersburg, Florida and mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Studios in New York. A lot of expertise went into creating this album.

The artwork on the cover of Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness by visual artists Dehn Sora and Aeron Alfrey is a great bonus to the album – you can easily spend 5 minutes staring at the cover, looking at all the intricate details in the drawing.

It's been 5 years since Ephel Duath have released an album and Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness is an album that is anxiously awaited by the fans. Ephel Duath follows no rules at all, uses no structure in their tracks, but simply do whatever they feel is right to do.

The music of Ephel Duath is described as a mixture of death metal, jazz and post-rock. While there are certainly elements of jazz in there, the main feel of the album is of experimental, avant-garde metal. For example, on “Through Flames I Shield”,the jazz influence is clear in the chords, but the track does not give us a jazzy feel at all.

Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darknessis mostly dwelling in a slow, pounding tempo, which makes it sound like a delayed version of death metal. The grunted vocals by Karyn Crisis are very clear, so that we can understand the lyrics about decay, despair and personal struggle. These are sometimes a bit over the top, as where we hear Crisis croon that she plays her guts like cello strings. Sometimes, the higher pitched grunts are almost like a raspy singing voice (Bonnie Tyler, anyone?).

For all metal fans who are up for an adventure, I'd recommend checking out Ephel Duath's Hemmed By Light, Shaped By Darkness. It's a very creative, intuitive album.